Portugal greenlights four new DTT channels

Portugal will get two more public TV channels on DTT, to be followed by another two private TV channels.

The news was announced by Portugal’s Minister of Culture, Luís Filipe Castro Mendes, during a Parliamentary audition.

Next week, the Parliament is expected to approve the expansion of the DTT offer with more channels beyond the current five (RTP1, RTP2, SIC, TVI and Canal Parlamento), based on four proposals submitted by the various political groups.

The Minister also revealed that the Socialist majority wants the expansion to also be extended to private broadcasters.

He said that, after the addition of two new public TV channels on DTT and consultations with the “relevant authorities, regulators and operators”, the next step will be to allocate two more DTT channels to private companies.

For her part, the head of the Left Block, Catarina Martins, told the “Lusa” news agency that the expansion of the DTT offer “will give a new impulse to digital TV” and will protect TV stations “from excessive billing” for the signal transmission by network operator Meo (Portugal Telecom).